Book #18
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school. Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning. Another reread of one of my favourites, and another confirmation that as we get older we feel things more deeply, and recognise more in others than our younger selves ever could have. I last read this twelve years ago, as a naive twenty-three year old. I don’t remember at the t
